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Politics, Economic Dilemmas and Trade-Unionism

Courtesy of the Hultink Family Foundation, the Cántaro Institute is now the new home for the Reformational Digital Library (formerly known as the Reformational Publishing Project). All rights reserved.

Document: H.J. Strauss, Politics, Economic Dilemmas and Trade-Unionism (n.d.).

Excerpt: Any familiarity at all with the patterns of power distribution in modern society reveals to us the proverbial battle between capital and labour, employer and employee. Accordingly, any informed inhabitant of any of our western industrial lands has heard of workers’ associations and is able to converse with others about trade unions (although trade unions are usually associated with employees only, it should be remembered that there are employers’ associations too). This economic battle-scene is so widespread that all and sundry accept it as a natural, unavoidable ingredient of present-day life. We rarely stop to consider its origins, or even faintly doubt that it is really necessary for capital and labour to be at continual loggerheads. Little effort is made to determine the implications of this (usually ‘legalized’) economic civil strife.

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Politics, Economic Dilemmas, and Trade Unionism – H.J. Strauss.pdf